Halfway Between Forever and Always
by shadowkitsune95
Summary: Time changes everything and people, no matter who they may be, have no choice but to change with it or be left behind...the world waits for no one
1. Chapter 1

**ShadowKitsune95: Hello! So this little story here was born from bordom and a serious case of writer's block on my other story, _Idle Wind._ I don't plan on giving up on it though and am hoping that maybe this will start getting my brain thinking again. Anyway, thank you muchly to my Muse for all the help with this story.**

**Disclaimer: Final Fantasy doesn't belong to me, however the idea for this story, Suzu, Hiroshi and Ryu do. Hoshi is the property of Kris, my dear twin face**

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Tseng walked into the Turk's Lounge, a Styrofoam coffee cup clutched in his hand. He stopped dead in his tracks and stared in disbelief at the person standing by the coffee pot. The raven-haired woman stood with her back to him, tapping her foot impatiently as she waited for the coffee pot to finish filling. He slowly started across the room watching the woman suspiciously; this was definitely out of character for her. "Suzu?" He inquired.

The woman glanced over her shoulder at her superior. "Oh, hey Tseng." She looked back at the coffee pot sighing irritably when she saw it wasn't finished yet.

"Why are you here?" Tseng asked, leaning against the counter next to her. "It's unusual for you to be in this early."

Suzu shrugged. "Couldn't sleep." Tseng snorted causing Suzu to smirk as she reached for the now filled coffee pot. It was a well known fact that Suzu suffered from insomnia and the only way she ever got any sleep was someone spiked her drink or knocked her out – both of which have happened on multiple occasions.

"No really." Tseng insisted, watching as Suzu dumped a ridiculous amount of sugar into her mug, chased by creamer and finally the dark liquid she seemed to live off.

Suzu leaned against the counter and sipped at her coffee. She stared off across the room, not really focusing on anything. "I don't know. I was bored and this is just where I ended up."

Tseng reached for the coffee pot and popped off the lid to his cup, refilling it. "Well then you have plenty of time to finish all of that paperwork you've been neglecting." Out of the corner of his eye Tseng saw Suzu make a face and chuckled. He headed out the door leaving her to glare at his back.

**

"_Suzume!" Hiro laughed grabbing the young girl in a bear hug, ignoring her struggles to free herself._

"_Don't call me that!" she cried trying in vain to wiggle away from the twenty year old._

"_It's your name isn't it?" He said finally releasing her. However the only response he got was a glare. Hiro just smiled, reaching out to ruffle her hair. She swatted at his hand in annoyance._

"_Where's Eiji?" The thirteen year old demanded._

_Hiro shrugged and walked around her to flop down in an old kitchen chair. "Around here somewhere."_

_Suzume frowned, and looked out the window searching the streets of the Slums. "I thought he was with you."_

"_He was…at first anyway. He took off on his own a little before I started home." Hiro watched as the young girl slid down the wall to sit on the floor. She hugged her knees to her chest and sighed disappointedly._

"_He said we could go see my parents' today." Suzume explained. She closed her eyes and rested her head on her knees. Hiro continued to watch her for a few minutes before abruptly standing up, startling the girl when the rickety chair scrapped against the floorboards._

"_I'll take you." He declared happily, holding his hand out to raven-haired girl. Suzume stared up at him, surprise written across her face. Slowly she began to smile and reached for his hand._

**

"Suzu!" A voice called seconds before a water balloon nailed the unsuspecting Turk. She blinked a few times, staring through her wet bangs at a pint-sized, smirking red head and his horrified babysitter of the day.

Elena hurried into the room, stumbling over her words as she tried to apologize to her soaking co-worker. "I'm so sorry. I tried to warn you!"

Suzu shook her bangs out of her eyes sending drops of water around her desk. "No worries, Laney." She smiled, while mentally cursing the sadistic nine-year old that her best friend had felt the need to adopt. It wasn't that she didn't like the kid, in fact she loved him to pieces, but his schemes could get a little tiring.

"I don't even know where he got them."

"I wouldn't be surprised if Reno supplied them to him…jerk." Suzu muttered darkly as she picked up the ruined papers on her desk.

Elena frowned but didn't say anything. Over the time she had worked with Suzu she had grown use to her blaming almost anything and everything on Reno. She would never understand why the two hated each other so much, but she was use to her fellow Turks' sometimes rather odd quirks. Like Rude's obsession with sunglasses, Suzu's refusal to clean her apartment, Hoshi always tugging at her hair and Reno's ability to fall asleep while working.

Ryu walked quickly across Suzu's office and hopped on top of the desk, tossing a blue balloon up and down. The water inside spun inside making an odd sloshing noise that annoyed Suzu. "Ha! I got ya good, Aunt Suzu!" He grinned.

Suzu smiled. "Yeah ya did." She watched as the balloon sailed into the air again and reached out and caught it before it fell back to the young Shinra. She smiled and darted around the desk, making a run for the door, Ryu yelling and running after her.

Suzu ignored the shouts from the kid and continued down the familiar corridor. She knew just what to do with this balloon. She barreled through a door without knocking, skidded to a halt and let the balloon fly. It flew through the air, catching the light from the fluorescent lighting, casting a blue shadow on the floor as it went. Its short life came to an end when it collided with a head of spiky red hair.

"Blue looks good on ya, Reno." Suzu smirked before dissolving into a laughing fit.

Ryu grabbed her around the waist demanding that he get the balloon back. Then he caught sight of Suzu's victim and doubled over in laughter. However, Suzu and Ryu's laughter was cut short when Reno leaped over his desk and ran at them. Both of them abruptly stopped and tried to get out the door at the same time causing a roadblock. Reno caught them and proceeded to try to stomp on Ryu who fell over backwards trying to avoid the wet red head. Meanwhile Reno had hold of Suzu and was trying to hit her while cussing.

This was the scene that greeted Rude when he got off the elevator in the morning. The three's fight had moved into the hall and was starting to draw a crowd. Elena hovered nearby seemingly trying to decide on a course of action. Some people might find this to be odd, but to the thirty-six year old man – well, nothing surprised him anymore. He walked briskly up the hallway occasionally elbowing a curious bystander out of the way. He reached into the human knot that was two Turks and a kid with the intent to break it up and was promptly dragged into the fight.

Hoshi Zetsubo walked out of the Turks' Lounge blurry eyed and fighting off a yawn. She had a freshly poured cup of coffee in one hand. She was on her way to Rufus' office, but found her way blocked by a large crowd of people. She scowled and began pushing her way through – it was too early for this!

Suddenly there was a break in the throng of people and she stumbled out into the clearing. She blinked a few times, slightly thrown off from the sudden room. But the temporary confusion didn't last long and the sound of the four fighting soon caught her attention. Being as early as it was Hoshi was tempted to ignore them, until she caught sight of her adopted son. She looked regretfully down at her coffee before pouring it over the tussling group.

The effect was immediate. They all jumped away from each other; Rude, Reno and Suzu all shed their jackets in an attempt to keep the hot liquid away from their skin. Ryu, having escaped the coffee, ran to Hoshi and hid behind her glaring at Reno. Hoshi reached out and hit Suzu and Reno over the head. "What's going on?" Hoshi demanded, more irritable then usual due to the early hour and having just lost her precious coffee.

The three jacketless Turks looked uncertainly at each other before Rude slowly backed up shaking his head. "I had nothing to do with it. I was trying to stop them." Hoshi ignored him. She had always had a slight fear of him and wasn't about to lecture him.

"And you two?" Hoshi asked. Reno pointed at Suzu who pointed at Ryu. Ryu noticed that he was being pointed at and jumped out from behind Hoshi to point at Elena. Hoshi followed the fingers, her eyes finally landing on the nervous blonde.

Elena looked away slightly embarrassed. In a way, she thought, it was her fault. After all she was suppose to have been watching Ryu. She had her back to him for only a few seconds, but she should have known that that's all a kid like Ryu would need to get into trouble. And of course he'd drag Suzu into it…and it was only natural for Suzu to pick on Reno.

Hoshi turned her back on Elena, completely ignoring her. Here she had trusted her to keep her Ryu out of trouble and look what had happened? It was barely seven in the morning and she had already had to break up a fight, ran into Rude, was late to showing up to Rufus' office and to top it all off had been forced to waste her coffee.

Reno stared cross-eyed down the barrel of Patronus, Hoshi's favorite of her two guns. "Uh - Hoshi?"

Hoshi glared at him, her finger on the trigger. "It's too early for this!" She growled.

"Don't take it out on me!" Reno insisted. "I wasn't to happy about being woke up either."

Suzu looked at Reno in disbelief. "Ya were asleep?" Reno shrugged.

Hoshi watched as the two ignored her. Her index finger twitched slightly, itching to pull the trigger and shoot both Reno and her morning annoyances away. Just as she started to inch the trigger back a familiar voice called to her. She immediately felt the need to kill something vanish. She was sure Suzu would have made fun of her for it if she had known what went on in her head.

"There you are." Rufus said appearing out from the slowly dispersing crowd. "You're late."

"I would've been on time if it wasn't for these idiots." Hoshi said gesturing to Reno, Rude and Suzu with one hand while the other attempted to put Patronus away without Rufus noticing. Suzu stumbled back a few steps when the barrel of the gun drifted too close for comfort in its search for its holster.

Rufus sighed. "What'd they do this time?"

"They were fighting." Ryu said innocently as if he hadn't been the real culprit to start the whole mess in the first place.

Rufus stared at them trying to decide on a proper punishment, but seemed to be having trouble coming up with one. "Oh what's the point?" He sighed; it wasn't like they were going to learn anything from it anyway.

Reno and Suzu let out a breath neither had realized they were holding. Rufus turned to Hoshi, a small smile playing across his lips. "So let's get going."

Hoshi frowned and shook her head. "Why not?" Rufus asked, confused.

Hoshi pointed to the pile of coffee soaked jackets. "I need more coffee." She elaborated before heading back to the Turks' Lounge where she could just hear the coffee pot calling her name.

**

_Suzume stood in front of the tombstones engraved with her parents' names. It was odd being here, she hadn't been by since the funeral. Behind her stood Hiro keeping a respectful distance. Suzume wished there was something she could say, but nothing seemed to be right. How do you tell the dead you love them? That you wished you were with them? Suzume didn't know, so she said nothing and fought back the tears that threatened to fall._

_Suzu turned to the older member of the gang, The Mononoke, and forced a smile, her eyes glassy from the unshed tears. "I'm ready to go."_

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**ShadowKitsune: Wow, that's the longest chapter I've written yet! Anyway, if you want to know more about Hoshi Zetsubo head on over to my twin face's profile and read her story on Hoshi's past! Thank you for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2

_Hoshi walked up the stairs to the front of the ShinRa Corporate Headquarters. She headed for the elevator, holding up her SOLDIER badge as she passed a half sleep guard. He more or less ignored her and she entered the elevator pressing the button for the floor where the Department of General Affairs was located. It didn't take long for the elevator to arrive at its destination, for which Hoshi was thankful…elevator music definitely wasn't her favorite sound on Gaia._

_She walked briskly down the hall, mentally cursing her good for nothing guardian, Reno. He had left their apartment in a hurry after having woken up late and as a result, left his wallet sitting on the kitchen table. When she had discovered it she had been tempted to leave it where it was and make him go without food for the day. However she was feeling unusually generous and decided to bring it to him._

_She reached his office and walked in, gripping the wallet and ready to throw it. She stopped dead in her tracks though, her arm falling back to her side. In front of Reno's desk, where the red head sat with his feet on his desk, was a blonde boy, maybe a year or two older than her. The blonde turned to look at her over his shoulder; Hoshi immediately felt her cheeks flush slightly. She unconsciously tugged at her oddly colored hair and slowly made her way across the room, trying not to meet the strange boy's eyes._

**

Hoshi followed Rufus back to his office, leaving Ryu in the not so capable hands of her best friend and co-worker, Suzu Koboyashi. Hoshi dropped into a chair in Rufus' office when they got there. She sipped at her coffee, watching her husband over the rim of the cup. It was his fault – it usually was. Ryu wouldn't act out so much if he paid more attention to him. And if Ryu didn't act out then the rest of the Turks wouldn't have an excuse to pick fights with each other…ok maybe Suzu would still find a way, but that was different.

Rufus glanced up from his paperwork and noticed the glare he was receiving from the green-haired Turk. This was a look the blonde man knew well – he was being blamed for something. He leaned back in his chair pretending to still look over the paper he was holding. Rufus cleared his throat and said, "Is something wrong?"

Hoshi snorted. "Of course something's wrong! Something's always wrong."

Rufus sighed and laid down the paper, ready for one of Hoshi's long-winded complaints. And she didn't disappoint. Hoshi jumped to her feet and began to pace back and forth in front of the well-polished desk. "Every day it's the same thing. Ryu ditches his babysitter and inevitably ends up providing Suzu with a reason to annoy Reno. Of course that ends up turning into a fight that Rude may or may not be dragged into, but something – or someone – eventually ends up being broken!"

Rufus nodded slightly waiting for the part where he got blamed for everything. However after a full ten minutes of ranting Hoshi had yet to reach that part. And in fact announced that she would be taking lunch early and stalked out of the office without blaming him for anything, much to Rufus' surprise.

Hoshi knew that at this early, Elena –her usual lunch buddy- would still be working, not to mention the fact that Hoshi was still slightly upset with her. So instead, Hoshi headed toward another familiar office – one where she knew she'd find someone more then willing to ditch work. She walked back down the hall toward the elevator, stopping three doors from it. At one point in time she may have done the courteous thing and knocked, but after knowing Suzu for as long as she had –a year and 6 months, she sort of figured Suzu wouldn't hear it anyway. So she opened the door and went ahead inside, stopping in her tracks when she was met with a mess of sheets spread crazily across the office in a make-shift fort. A cardboard sign hung off Suzu's desk proclaimed in crayon that this mess of sheets was the great 'Fort Impossible'.

Hoshi shook her head before grabbing the corner of the nearest sheet. She yanked the sheet toward her, effectively tumbling the whole fort. A few cries of surprise came from the center of the fort as the two inhabitants struggled to free themselves from the now tangled sheets. Ryu was the first to appear; he crawled out of the sheets and looked around the office. His eyes eventually landed on his mom. He smiled and gave her a small wave. "Hey, Aunt Su, we have a visitor."

Suzu poked her head out from underneath a polka dotted sheet. She blinked a few times, her eyes trying to adjust to the fluorescent lighting after the dim light that had been under the sheets. She then caught sight of Hoshi. She glared at her green-haired co-worker. "This was your doing, wasn't it?" Suzu accused.

Hoshi rolled her eyes and ignored the question. "Get up, ya look ridiculous. Besides, we're goin to lunch."

"Lunch?" Suzu inquired skeptically as she stood up and pulled the sheets off of her. "It's barely ten."

"Since when do you care?"

Suzu shrugged. "Fair enough." Suzu grabbed her jacket and headed toward the door. "Come on Ryu, let's go."

Ryu rushed past the two adults, making a mad dash for the elevator. Hoshi and Suzu followed at a more leisurely pace. "Where do ya wanna go for lunch?" Suzu asked, stepping into the elevator.

Hoshi shrugged. "Don't really care." She said. The doors slid closed and the elevator music began. Hoshi glared at the speakers, her hand twitching toward her guns. One bullet and the speakers would be forever silenced…at least until Rufus hired someone to fix them. What was the importance of elevator music anyway?

The doors slid open when it reached the ground floor. The three disembarked, walked past the old security guard who didn't even glance up as they passed. Suzu smirked. "Oh yeah, I feel safe knowing that guys watching the doors." Hoshi rolled her eyes and lightly punched the other girl in the arm.

"Yeah, he's ancient." Ryu quipped happily, walking backwards.

"Ryu that's not nice." Hoshi scolded before smiling. "Hiro's ancient."

"And Vincent's older than dirt!" Ryu laughed soon joined by Hoshi.

Suzu rolled her eyes. "Ya two are hilarious."

Eventually the trio settled on eating at a small out door café a block from the ShinRa Corporate Headquarters. It wasn't really popular, but the food was both good and affordable. As they waited for the waitress to come take their order, Hoshi decided to continue her earlier rant. However, this time she didn't leave anything out. Suzu only half listened. She had perfected the act of being able to tune out the person speaking to her while still recognizing the pauses where a response from her was required.

"He never pays any attention to us any more." Hoshi raved. "Poor Ryu barely even gets to see him…"

"I'm ok with that mom." Ryu said, but ultimately went ignored. Which he found to be extremely ironic considering the contents of his mother's complaints.

"When was the last time we did something as a family?" Hoshi demanded.

Suzu glanced up from her menu looking slightly confused. "Ya guys do stuff as a family?"

Hoshi sighed irritably. "That's what I mean!" She shouted, earning a few odd looks from the people at the surrounding tables. She noticed and returned a glare that made the specters quickly return to their meals.

Suzu glanced over at the people her friend was glaring at. She sighed and leaned back in her chair, setting the menu back down on the table. "Hoshi, stop glarin' at them, they're not the one's keeping your dear Rufu away from you and Ryu."

"Ya can't tell me there isn't anything that Rufus does that pisses you off."

"Of course there is." Suzu said, glancing sideways at Ryu who was entertaining himself by flicking pieces of ice from his drink at nearby diners.

"Like?" Hoshi prompted.

"Like the fact that he thinks he's better than everyone for starters!" Suzu said. "Just because he's a ShinRa he thinks he's so great! He needs to be knocked down a few pegs! And…" Suzu trailed off, when she caught sight of the devious smile spreading across Hoshi's face.

"What?" Suzu asked wearily. Ryu looked up at his mom, curious to see what had stopped his Aunt Suzu from completing her famous rant on what she hated about Rufus ShinRa.

"Like ya said, he needs to be knocked down a few pegs." Hoshi replied. "So let's do it."

Suzu smirked and leaned forward, crossing her arms on the table top. "And I take it ya have an idea?"

"Of course." Hoshi smiled.

**  
_  
Hoshi approached the desk tugging absent-mindedly at her long hair. She muttered a quiet hello to the blonde man but received no response. Reno watched her, slightly confused as to why she would be here of all places. "Uh- hey Hosh. What're you doing here, yo?"_

_Hoshi then remembered her earlier irritation. She threw the wallet, hitting the red head in the forehead. Reno, surprised by the sudden 'attack,' fell backward out of the chair, landing with a rather pronounced thud. Hoshi glared at him, "You forgot your wallet, you good for nothing slob." She stalked out of the room leaving the two to stare after her in confusion._


End file.
